ANOTHER OBAMA RECORD… US Debt Equals Size of US Economy
Posted by Jim Hoft on Monday, February 14, 2011, 12:05 PM
How’s this for hope and change?
The US federal debt this year will top $15 trillion, officially equaling the size of the entire US economy.
The Washington Times reported:
President Obama projects that the gross federal debt will top $15 trillion this year, officially equalling the size of the entire U.S. economy, and will jump to nearly than $21 trillion in five years’ time.
Amid the other staggering numbers in the budget Mr. Obama sent to Congress on Monday, the debt stands out — both because Congress will need to vote to raise the debt limit later this year, and because the numbers are so large.
Mr. Obama‘s budget said 2011 will see the biggest one-year jump in debt in history, or nearly $2 trillion in a single year. And the administration says it will reach $15.476 trillion by Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year, to reach 102.6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) — the first time since World War II that dubious figure has been reached.
In one often-cited study, two economists have argued that when gross debt passes 90 percent it hinders overall economic growth.
The president’s budget said debt as a percentage of GDP will top out at 106 percent in 2013, but only if the economy booms.
“I still don’t see a sense of urgency from the president about the massive federal debt,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander, Tennessee Republican. “His budget calls for too much government borrowing – even though the debt is already at a level that makes it harder to create private-sector jobs.”
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Published May 22, 2012 at 5:04 am - 29 Comments
Big L commented:
Lets look at Bill Clinton’s Budget for 93-94. Lets see what his deficit was. Let’s check his funding of the various departments. 18yrs ago? Shouldbe less.
Then we shall watch the lefties’ heads explode.
The Gop won’t make cuts in entitlemnets because the Donks will demonize them and the GOP will lose. But the GOPers can lose if the don’t cut too.
Use a meat-axe and explain why you are doing it. And if possible use Clinton era budgets as an example of making do with less.
That is if it was okay for Bill, then it is okay for Barry!
(blam,splat, boom-heads exploding)
donabernathy commented:
Worst President EVAH…… The science is settled… he dumber than the Peanut Farmer
roflmao
donabernathy commented:
Big L … Lets just adopt a Budget with 93-94 spending LEVELS….. that outta do it
I like it.
ChillyinAlaska commented:
WHY hasn’t he been impeached YET?
Thunder on the Right commented:
http://starboard.blogtownhall.com/2011/02/14/its_time_for_draconian_budget_cuts!.thtml
President Obama has submitted his budget proposal, and unsurprisingly it calls for an even bigger deficit and more spending! Fortunately, the GOP-controlled House is sending the Administration a message reminiscent of Tip-O’Neal’s “dead on arrival” response to Reagan’s austere budgets.
Obama is calling for a 3.5 Trillion dollar budget. Of that, more than $1.5 Trillion is deficit spending, meaning that for every dollar we spend, nearly 43 cents is new debt. Borrowed money which future generations must pay back, with interest!
Said another way, wherever we can afford $57, we spend $100!
The President claims his budget will cut $1.1 Trillion over the next decade. Even if that were true (and there’s no evidence to suggest that it is!) that is a cut of $110 Billion a year on a $3.5 Trillion budget with a $1.5 Trillion deficit! Correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s a reduction of the deficit by a factor of around 1/15!
Let’s apply that formula to something a little closer to home. Let’s suppose I’m spending $45,000 a year more than I make, and I’m half a million in debt.
Do you think my cutting $3000 a year from my spending habits would keep me from bankruptcy?? Of course not! But the Keynesians STILL believe that they can spend themselves into prosperity!
Keynesian tax-and-spend economics, the mainstay of Progressive economic policy for nearly 100 years, has been attractive to Socialist Utopian Academics… because it fits their narrative and agenda. When tested in the laboratory of REAL LIFE, however, their hypotheses fall flat time after time. The failed “Stimulus” of 2009 should have erased any vestige of doubt and put the final nail in the coffin of the Keynesian model. Keynes is to economics what the Flat Earthers were to Geo-Science!
The Left decries conservative proposals to cut the budget as “Draconian”… but pay attention to the numbers!
Remember that a BILLION is 1000 MILLION, and a TRILLION is a MILLION MILLION!
Our current deficit is 1.5 Trillion. Obama is willing to cut 110 Billion!! But he says he has to raise taxes to do it!! Congressman Ryan recently complained about not having a “baseline” for budgeting. May I suggest using the FY 2006 Budget as your starting point?
This was the last budget passed by a GOP congress before Pelosi/Reid took the reigns of Congress and began spending us into oblivion, tripling the deficit every 2 years and raising our debt from 6 Trillion to 14 Trillion in 4 short years! In 2006 our deficit was only around $120 Billion… it’s currently almost 15 times larger! Why don’t we START with a BASELINE that undoes Pelosi/Reid spending?
In the 4 years that Pelosi/Reid were in power, our debt more than doubled. They increased our debt by 8 TRILLION in 4 years! When President Bush took office, our debt was only 4 (FOUR) Trillion dollars! After 6 years, the debt was increased by 50% to 6 Trillion, and Bush was roundly (and deservedly) criticized. In 2003 the deficit was around 420 Billion. This was after 9/11, the dot-com bubble burst, and the runup and execution of the combat phase of 2 wars!
In 2003 Bush and the GOP Congress passed tax cuts, and consequently the deficit was reduced each of the following 3 years, so that when Pelosi/Reid took the reins, we were on track for a balanced budget in a year or two! When the GOP lost control of the house, they had reduced the deficit to 1/3 of the 2003 level – around 120 Billion.
It is now time to wake up and smell the coffee. We are 14 TRILLION in debt, so the INTEREST on that debt has more than doubled in 4 years. We are in a hole we may NEVER be able to climb out of… but certainly the first step MUST be to STOP DIGGING!
You will hear a lot of talk about “discretionary” spending. This encompasses our Military spending (both wartime operational expenses and the baseline expenses to maintain a standing military), as well as all other regulatory and operational costs of government. The sum total of our “discretionary” spending is around 1.2 or 1.3 Trillion dollars.
The remainder of our budget is the so-called “mandatory” spending. This is a misnomer. These expenses, with the exception of interest on the National Debt, are “ENTITLEMENTS”. Since the constitution neither mandates nor authorizes these “take from Peter to pay Paul” transfers of wealth, how can they be termed “Mandatory”? But I digress!
It is essential that we address the problem of entitlement spending. Congress must acknowledge that if we were to eliminate ALL discretionary spending and ONLY fund entitlements and interest on the debt, we’d still be left with a budget shortfall of around 250 BILLION DOLLARS!! Without operating a government AT ALL except to transfer money, we’d STILL be a quarter of a Trillion dollars deeper in the hole every year!
STOP DIGGING!! We must cut entitlements, significantly. Yes, there’s discretionary spending that can be trimmed. But again – cutting ALL discretionary spending won’t be enough to balance the budget. Entitlements MUST be addressed. It’s fiscal Armageddon if we don’t.
Robert commented:
“I still don’t see a sense of urgency from the president about the massive federal debt,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander, Tennessee Republican.
I don’t see a sense of urgency from anyone in Washington D.C. period. Or any politician anywhere, who are the ones responsible for this travesty of mismanagement.
Currently a family of four’s share of the national debt is in the neighborhood of $180,000.
In five years that will rise to over $240,000, a 25% increase.
Whose pay is going to increase 25% in the next five years?
Terry Green commented:
Nice going Barack!
Granny commented:
#6 February 14, 2011 at 12:24 pm
Robert commented:
“I still don’t see a sense of urgency from the president about the massive federal debt,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander, Tennessee Republican.
I don’t see a sense of urgency from anyone in Washington D.C. period. Or any politician anywhere, who are the ones responsible for this travesty of mismanagement.
Currently a family of four’s share of the national debt is in the neighborhood of $180,000.
In five years that will rise to over $240,000, a 25% increase.
Whose pay is going to increase 25% in the next five years?
__________
I wouldn’t be worrying about 25% in the next 5 years. You’re going to need it in the next 5 MONTHS. In case you didn’t notice, the price of meat is going to go up dramatically because of the increased allocation by the EPA of corn-based ethanol to your gas tank. That corn would normally go to feed cattle, pigs and poultry – or overseas to the hungry who will also be doing without.
Yesterday it was announced that freezing temperatures in the Southwest and Mexico have nearly totally destroyed the vegetable crops your supermarket depends on. Prices are expected to double – or more. Immediately.
This morning I read that you can expect your clothing to cost 10% or better more starting in March. Now that “the recession is over” designers and clothing houses no longer feel they need to keep prices low.
Good luck!
Chisum commented:
More hope and change. For certain people.
Washington area is beginning to bounce back from recession, economists say
No, there aren’t huge signing bonuses, or personal concierge services, or the jaw-dropping luxury perks that companies threw at top talent back in the boom days of the ’90s. But with the pall of the Great Recession finally lifting, some Washington area companies are handing out iPads at interviews and rewarding employees with $5,000 referral bonuses and trips to France.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/13/AR2011021303060.html
StrangernFiction commented:
Does that mean you are down with a serious effort to free the private sector from Fedzilla Lamar? I didn’t think so.
Liz commented:
This man is hell-bent on destroying this country with fiscal insolvency – which exactly mirrors the agenda of all leftists and Islamists. They know they cannot “take us out” militarily, so the next best thing is to go after the economy. 9/11, the underwear bomber, the Times Square bomber…all wanted to kill as many Americans as possible, but the bigger goal was to create economic “freeze” zones, which would disrupt transportation, tourism, and employment. This treasonous person who’s been elected president has only one goal – to economically destroy America from within. 2012 cannot come fast enough.
AdexList4Dems commented:
There is no ” urgency ” because they know the economy and by default our government is going to collapse. Look at all the countries that want to replace the dollar with something else as reserve currency, when happens it’s over. Think about it these terms : if you knew you were going to file for bankruptcy -why not just run up the cards and your debt ?. People and companies do it all the time, these politicians and big bankers running the privately owned fed reserve are doing the same thing. When the economy crashes these guys think they can ride in like FDR with a big government, crony capitalist band aid.
befuddled commented:
i have to personally apologize to the obama. this guy is a clever SOB. i never thought he was capable of bringing America to her knees with one term. i thought for sure, two terms at the least. but his hard work, dedication, blind party loyalty, and a fawning liberal media has brought us to today.
incompetence has a slim chance of success. it takes true ,purposeful intelligence for all things to fail.
Mikey commented:
“i have to personally apologize to the obama. this guy is a clever SOB. i never thought he was capable of bringing America to her knees with one term. i thought for sure, two terms at the least. but his hard work, dedication, blind party loyalty, and a fawning liberal media has brought us to today.”
Well well said, befuddled. Thanks Obama, America is now a third world nation. We have illegals running everywhere with no enforcement; the government is broken; Washington is corrupt. Isn’t the Hope and Change Obama brought to America great? And to top it off, this clown COULD get reelected. Pray for America.
Blacque Jacques Shellacque commented:
I was previously ambivalent about raising the ceiling, but with this new budget proposal, ALL Republicans need to stand firm – no raising of the ceiling. The current occupant of the White House is a spending-addicted fool, and it appears the only way to put a stop to his destructive tendencies is for someone or some people with any authority to finally say NO.
T. Thompson commented:
Typical Chicago Politics: Obama is personally responsible for getting us in this mess, now he wants us, the taxpayer to bail him and the economy out of this mess. Hey you “Obama” voters,
how do you like the change now? You are the one’s responsible and now you sit on your lazy “Ass” drawing 3 years unemployment not caring whether you go back to work or not considering you are living on easy street and “us” the respectful working people are paying the price for it. Guess you knew what you were promised and going to get for voting for him. You Obama people are a bunch of slime in the highest degree!!!!!!!!
T. Thompson commented:
NO RAISING THE DEBT LIMIT OR ALL OF YOU POLITICIANS NEED TO GO-IT HAS TO STOP SOMEWHERE AND THE TIME IS NOW OR NEVER
Chisum commented:
OMG!!! Even Andrew Sullivan has lost that lovin’ feeling.
[Senators] have to lead, because this president is too weak, too cautious, too beholden to politics over policy to lead. In this budget, in his refusal to do anything concrete to tackle the looming entitlement debt, in his failure to address the generational injustice, in his blithe indifference to the increasing danger of default, he has betrayed those of us who took him to be a serious president prepared to put the good of the country before his short term political interests. Like his State of the Union, this budget is good short term politics but such a massive pile of fiscal bullsh*t it makes it perfectly clear that Obama is kicking this vital issue down the road.
To all those under 30 who worked so hard to get this man elected, know this: he just screwed you over. He thinks you’re fools. Either the US will go into default because of Obama’s cowardice, or you will be paying far far more for far far less because this president has no courage when it counts. He let you down. On the critical issue of America’s fiscal crisis, he represents no hope and no change. Just the same old Washington politics he once promised to end.
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/02/14/video-obama-unveils-surreal-catastrophic-new-budget/
xqqme commented:
This isn’t by accident , is it?
Blacque Jacques Shellacque commented:
What an idiot.
And that can apply to either of the two.
Airon Later commented:
So the “entire” debt is Obama’s fault? Wait, what happened to that word that the modern American Right loves to use? What is it…………oh……………..isn’t it “context”?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_by_U.S._presidential_terms
Jeffery Lundblad commented:
The problem is that neither Republicans nor Democrats are really willing to make the necessary changes to temper this growing problem. A great article, I just wrote a little bit about the debt myself.
http://politikalmatters.blogspot.com/